PLATYDEMA. 185 
I have examined about 200 individuals, including specimens from the United States, 
and find every intermediate form between the large and small examples. P. fraternum, 
Chevr., from Santo Domingo, of which I have a typical example before me, is merely 
small P. excavatum ; it is identical with specimens from the United States. Allied 
forms are found in Australia (P. striatum, Montr.,=P. oriticum, Pascoe), in Madagascar 
(P. fronticorne, Klug), in Japan (P. nigrowneum, Motsch.), &c. 
The head in the male of P. excavatum is furnished with two thin porrect horns, 
placed one on each side of the intraocular space and just within the eyes, the same 
part in the female being longitudinally raised; in both sexes there is a deep excavation 
(deepest in the male) between the elevations. 
We figure a well-developed male from the Volcan de Chiriqui. 
2. Platydema undatum. (Tab. VIII. figg. 13, ¢; 14, var. 2.) 
Neomida picta, Motsch. Bull. Moscou, xlvi. part 1, p. 480 (1873)*. 
Platydema undatum, Chevr. Petites Nouv. Ent. ii. p. 194 (1878). 
Hab. Mexico! (Stark ?, in coll. Bates), Vera Cruz, Orizaba (Saillé), Esperanza, 
Jalapa (Hége); Britise Honpuras, Belize (Llancaneaux); Guatemata, Balheu 
(Champion) ; Nicaragua, Chontales (belt); Panama}, Volcan de Chiriqui, Bugaba 
(Champion). 
A wide ranging and not uncommon species in Central America. ‘This insect is well 
described by Motschoulsky, who also notices a variety from Panama, in which the 
broad angular transverse bands of the elytra are ferruginous and margined only with 
black (the narrow testaceous zigzag bands in consequence standing out more clearly), 
instead of being wholly black. I have examined a typical example of P. wndatum, 
Chevr. (labelled “type, Stark”) in Mr. F. Bates’s collection ; this individual, as regards 
the elytra, agrees well with Motschoulsky’s description, though the head and thorax 
differ greatly ; on examination, however, I find that the specimen has been gummed 
together, and that the head and thorax at present attached to it belong to another 
species. Motschoulsky’s name being preoccupied, we have to tall back upon that of 
Chevyolat. 
We figure a typical male from Jalapa, and also a female of the variety from Volcan 
de Chiriqui. 
3. Platydema rodriguezi. (Tab. VIII. fig. 15, ¢.) 
Ovate, moderately convex, dull black, opaque. Head red or reddish brown; the basal half almost smooth, 
the frontal half slightly shining and shallowly, finely, and confusedly punctured ; the epistoma defined 
posteriorly by a broad and deep transverse impression in both sexes; in the male the intraocular space 
deeply longitudinally excavate in the middle and with an elevation on each side just within the eye, in 
the female this space slightly raised on each side and without excavation in the middle ; antenne with 
the four or five basal joints, and the apical one, red, the rest black, joints 8-10 transverse ; prothorax 
strongly transverse, the sides rapidly converging from the base and scarcely rounded, the apex arcuate 
BIOL. CENTR.-AMER., Coleopt., Vol. IV. Pt. 1, July 1886. 2 BB 
